So I'm doing the missions for the first group of career agents, concentrating on the Industry career agent. The missions are generally quite good as added tutorial, leading you through various steps of a career. I learn to mine ore, to refine it, and how to manufacture items from the ore with a blueprint. Then I get a new mission to manufacture things, one that needs other metals than Tritanium, which means I need to find asteroids other than Veldspar.

I find out that I need Pyroxeres ore, which can be found in 0.8 to 0.9 security space. Easy enough, I think. I fly to such a sector, fly to the next asteroid belt, and check my overview for asteroids other than Veldspar. Hmmm, nothing. Next asteroid belt, get in a fight with some pirates, but still only Veldspar asteroids on the overview. Third asteroid belt, still only Veldspar on the overview, I'm starting to wonder why I can't find that Pyroxeres.

So I ask in the help channel, and some more experienced player enlightens me: By default for a new player the only type of asteroid shown are Veldspar. You need to click on the tiny triangle in front of the word Overview on top of the Overview window to find the Overview Settings, where you can select other Asteroids to show. Doh! None of that is explained in any of the tutorials up to that point, if you don't find another player explaining you how it works, or click through the asteroids manually instead of using the Overview, you're unlikely to ever find anything but Veldspar.
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 8:26 PM Permanent Link
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Yeah a good tip is to leave the mission description screen minimized and that when when you complete the objective, whatever it is, the window pops up and you'll know for sure that you have completed it.

Something that I never understood: how anyone with any interestin learning to play EvE could try and do so without first consulting even a basic google search of "eve tips", "eve guide", "eve help", etc.

There are literally hundreds of great guides on, firstly, learning the basics of advancement, skills, ships, and the like. I couldnt imagine thinking I could possibly discover how millions of item options interact and are used.

Tobold, Im not sure if you have checked out these tools: EvEMon and EvE Fitting Tool. They can both be found easily from google and are actually spectacular for figuring out:

1) Which skills/ships you want2) Which skill you need for said ships3)Which weapons/etc you can put on that ship4)Skills needed for themEtc.

It makes planning your skill order out a thousand times easier and most importantly, simplifies it.

These tools basically take all the info from the game, and YOUR character's information, and puts it together in pretty much any way you want. Graphs and charts are your friend.

Well, first of all EVE isn't a game that is "friendly to everyone" :), and it pretty much is never going to be given CCP's track record. Which can be a good thing...

There are going to be many more moments like this. In fact, you should pretty much accept the idea that the tutorials are not going to give you anything other than an extremely basic idea of how to do things, if even that. Get used to looking for help resources online (I foresee that you'll need to look up EVE Online Probing Tutorial on Youtube) or through the help channel.

You'll eventually want to customise your overview to have multiple tabs, for example I have one for showing all ores, one for showing only ships, one for showing only planets (for fast warping away).

Oh and just a tip, you'll need even more types of minerals later on for the production missions that are even harder to find. I suggest simply buying them off the market, because it costs next to nothing compared to the time spent jumping around asteroid belts looking for non-veldspar asteroids. Mining is mining, it isn't any more fun whether you're mining veldspar or pyroxerxes or scordite.

And don't worry, I've seen countless people ask this exact same question in the rookie help channel so it's only a teensie weensie newbie moment :) Although I seem to recall that one page in the tutorial did briefly mention adding other asteroid types to the overview, since I didn't encounter this problem when I started.

I got that problem as well when I got back into EvE about a year ago. Once you have the Overview figured out it is a good tool though, I also have various tabs for mining, salvaging, missioning and navigation.

Finding some minerals can get quite hairy though, since they are in lower sec systems, and those are less safe than where you are now. By quite a margin.

@J. DangerouS: obviously you don't think like this, but I do, and I am sure that other people think the same as me - when you first play a game (any game), you would expect to find the answers/help you need in the game. I would be most upset to spend good money on a game, then find out I would have to spend hours google searching how to play the damn thing!

@ToboldWhen you're not learning something specific, default to filling out your "core skills" using the certificate system as a guide. You would be surprised at how useful they are ("What, you mean I can target more than one ship at a time if I skill up targeting???" - yes I've heard that one)

Once you get EVEMON one trick is to put a plan in place then see if slipping in some learning skills at the beginning will shorten that specific plan. It's a great way to trade off between getting the learning skills (which you want because it'll speed up your skill learning) and feeling like there's no skill progress (because learning skills don't actually unlock the use of anything other than learning skills).

@ToboldI forgot about the 72 hour wait for API key, didn't mean to keep going on about EvEmon.

When you do get it, the main feature you want to use initially is setting up your skill order. You can plan out as many different templates as you wish.

For example, if you wanted a ship called the "Killer", you could make one template that contains your entire skill training up to the skill(and individual rank) you need, as well as the skills for the weapons/etc you want with it.

As well as planning capabilities, it includes every stat for every item, and I believe other users' setups for every ship.

@DaergelI never meant to imply that the answers to "gameplay" problems or questions are not in the game. As many others have said, the extensive tutorials cover all of the basic gameplay elements.

However, if you seek to gain a better understanding of both the skill system, equipping your ships, and advancement in general, why would you not want to do it in the simplest, easiest, fastest way?

These tools do not have information that isnt in the game. However, it distills the literal thousands of items and skills into a clear and concise format. It makes designing your ship so much easier and faster that I have no idea why anyone wouldnt use it.

It also makes understanding exactly how advancement works easier by severals orders of magnitude. If you havent played EvE or tried to overcome the change from WoW then you have no clue how much easier it becomes with pretty charts and diagrams.

Anways, the reason I always make sure to direct new players to guides and superb tools is that EvE doesnt really come into its own until you fully grasp the mechanics, gameplay, and endless possibilities.

Basically, I find "the hump" in EvE is much more complicated and extensive than other games. However, once you get over it (assuming you love the idea of a sandbox world in a sci-fi setting) the attachment to it is just as much more powerful.

The EvE "Hump":1)comfortable with controls, gameplay, and mechanics2)understanding of trade, manufacturing, and how the economy works3)grasp the enormity of the universe and the sheer number of players/corps that inhabit it; this is literally an entire world where everything is run by real people4)experienced the world of corps, even a little. Simply being in a corp opens your eyes to the endless possibilities of EvE, where countless corps specialize in infinitely many different areas.

Once you see just how different this game is to other MMOs, how you can literally experience this game in any way you wish, and how intriguing the options for your career and corp are your perspective of other games changes dramatically.

As an aside my wife started playing late last year, so I got to see the new player experience through her experience.. and yes she had the same issue with the asteroids.

That said, now she is pretty much running nearly our entire T2 production business, so never think a new player can't contribute, as she was contributing within a month, and now is probably more critical than my industry character to the business.

.... and as proof to her addiction she now has two accounts (an alt training to come to 0.0), and is creating her own "eve spreadsheets".

I had the same newbie moment myself. I came to a slightly different conclusion, however. I just assumed that that particular ore had just been mined out by all the other players. (Which was somewhat true.) Luckily, I discovered the amazing power of the customizable overview pretty early on as well.

its funny that you mention controls, as many people still think that pvp includes, right clicking a target, and clicking orbit....

sad part is if your in an intercepter with your MWD active and 100km out trying to tackle a battlecruisers, your dead if you follow that means of "control"... instead you should manually double click in space so that you come in at the target in a spiral to keep up transversal and reduce chances of being hit...

its things like that that i doubt even the military careers even now teach... yes you'll find out that you can double click in space to move, but only a pvp player made tutorial will give you that tip to survival and advanced techniques in winning at pvp ...

too many people see the tutorial, follow the "ill just mine and run a mission" and then get bored... im sorry but those are great for making isk, but crap for enjoyment honestly... how about taking a group of 10 buddies out on a pvp roam in frigates, its cheap and fun and an experience every time...

eve isnt a solo game it just isnt.

and the advanced eve where everyone that loves the game ends up and newbies dont see right away, isnt handed to you on a silver platter it comes from experience and listening to others.